Ben E. King Quotes

#1. You take a chance to do something and you realize in your heart it's either going to be the greatest thing that ever happened or the worst thing that ever happened. It won't be an in between, I almost made a hit. It will be an instant flop or an instant success.

Ben E. King

#2. It would probably take me an hour to two to write it down, get the feel of it, and that's with quite a few changes. It's not really a hard thing for me to do.

Ben E. King

#3. I'd originally intended 'Stand By Me' for the Drifters.

Ben E. King

#4. The Phil Spector that I would meet has always been a nice, quiet, little guy who's very serious about his work; obviously you can tell that because each and everything he's ever done has always been charted.

Ben E. King

#5. I do like what Alicia Keys and John Legend are doing. With their music, you keep your clothes on.

Ben E. King

#6. I still think my whole career was accidental. I didn't pursue it. I feel like I'm cheating sometimes.

Ben E. King

#7. The movie is actually from a book by Stephen King called The Body. When they were gonna put it to a motion picture, they found the story was a bit too strong for the title The Body, based on a young kid's movie. It would be too heavy.

Ben E. King

#8. When I got involved with The Five Crowns who later became The Drifters, and we got this hit record, I still was looking at this as kind of a fun thing.

Ben E. King

#9. Most black singers like to slow the word down and, and go directly to your heart. They're not interested in your ears, we just want to go directly to your heart.

Ben E. King

#10. I always felt I never chose music, it chose me.

Ben E. King

#11. Many times I've gone on tours with Paul Anka. He would have someone sitting behind him to keep people from even talking to him. You were almost in a little restricted area there.

Ben E. King

#12. You were able to sing something they related to instantly, because it was part of what you felt. It was part of what you had already traveled through. It's part of the people you were associating with daily. It was all of that.

Ben E. King

#13. And darling, darling stand by me. Oh, stand by me.

Ben E. King

#14. Yeah. I've been pretty fortunate to travel I guess, all around the place.

Ben E. King

#15. Yeah. I'm amateurish. I can play enough to write a song, or strum on a little guitar to write out a song. But, I don't play well at all. I wouldn't even attempt for a second to play in public.

Ben E. King

#16. I don't care what studio I'm in, I don't care what producers is producing it and I don't care what song it is because they taught me those things I feel so protected wherever I go as far as music.

Ben E. King

#17. If you just concentrate on what you're doing and allow yourself to actually enjoy and let your feelings come out, whatever the tempos, whatever the rhythms, whatever the songs, 9 out of 10 times it will work.

Ben E. King

#18. The industry now wants to be in charge of everything.

Ben E. King

#19. You're writing it is how you feel. And when you're finished you put your signature on it and you mail it off and that's it. And that's how "Stand By Me" was really.

Ben E. King

#20. A singer has got a different attitude, they're they're so whacked out they don't know what they're doing half the time. Singers, they don't, they're spoiled too.

Ben E. King

#21. At that time, we were in charge. We didn't ask. We just did. We just did what was in our heart.

Ben E. King

#22. It never dawned on me at any particular time of my life that people are paid tremendous money to sing.

Ben E. King

#23. When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we see. No, I won't be afraid, no, I won't be afraid, just as long as you stand, stand by me.

Ben E. King

#24. Those things don't happen today. I feel sorry for the kids in the industry today. They have on sunglasses, eat caviar in jet planes, but they'll never know the true feeling that we did.

Ben E. King

#25. I enjoyed singing, I loved song writing, I loved recording. All those things that involves with creating music was great.

Ben E. King

#26. It doesn't take me long to write songs.

Ben E. King

#27. When we took on the name The Drifters, we became the new Drifters, and signed a contract to be put on salary, which I think was like a hundred dollars a week, a piece, five hundred dollars for all five of us.

Ben E. King

#28. It's a different thing when you go into a studio and you record with the intent of going somewhere and you're marketing yourself for that direction.

Ben E. King

#29. If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall. Or the mountain should crumble to the sea. I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear, just as long as you stand by me.

Ben E. King

#30. One minute we can be in a small club, the next minute we can be in a coliseum, and the next minute we can be in a small auditorium. It varies, depending on the promoter, the budget, and the travelling distance.

Ben E. King

#31. One of the members of the group, I can't remember which one, found out we were making $3 - $5,000 a night. We were getting a hundred dollars a week a piece. Everybody got upset about it.

Ben E. King

#32. We were doing things with a hundred per cent feeling. It wasn't programmed. It wasn't asked for. It wasn't structured. It was just there. It was very raw. I don't think the industry would allow that to happen again.

Ben E. King

#33. One of the hardest things in the world is to perform on record and get someone to enjoy and feel what you're doing. It's unlike, like TV you can, you can fake it with the face and the crying and the bits. Recording is completely different.

Ben E. King

#34. In my vocal, I think you can hear something of my earlier times when I'd sing in subway halls for the echo and perform doo-wop on street corners. But I had a lot of influences, too - singers like Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Roy Hamilton.

Ben E. King

#35. I'm a songwriter. So I'm OK. But when I wrote "Stand By Me" as a song and to know that the song will probably be here for hundred and hundreds of years to come, it's great, you know. And it was just simple lyrics.

Ben E. King

#36. He was a manager, one of the singers, I guess talent coordinator for the local talent in Harlem. His name was Lover Patterson. He was living right across the street from where my dad had his restaurant. I guess he saw a lot of kids come in, a lot of my buddies.

Ben E. King

#37. I never even visualized for a second doing what I'm doing.

Ben E. King

#38. And, because there was an honesty about all that was going on. It connected with the people in the street.

Ben E. King

#39. Of course, the kids who had never heard of a person called Ben E. King were then aware of the name associated with the song. That gave a tremendous lift to me as an artist.

Ben E. King

#40. If there's anything about the business that I love and that I'm extremely happy about, is that my career started at that time and that I met some of the greatest entertainers at that time and some are still here.

Ben E. King

#41. I still perform it in all my shows. I'll do it as long as I'm breathing. I'm so proud it has stood the test of time.

Ben E. King

#42. I do a lot of Vegas work and work with the comedians.

Ben E. King